I heard him muttering under his breath, but the pounding and yelling both stopped. Maybe he remembered the last time we had a confrontation—the one that had ended with me using only one hand to hold him pinned against the wall a foot off the floor.

I yanked on a pair of sweatpants and a hoodie, quickly spun open the combination lock that I’d installed on my mini-fridge, and downed about half a bottle of brain-shake. Things had been decent and non-violent between my dad and me for the past several weeks, but that didn’t mean I trusted it to stay that way. Besides, I felt like shit and needed the push of awesome that being full on brains gave me. It wasn’t a physical thing—mostly a fucked up accumulation of the past few days’ emotional knocks. Marianne’s death, the holdup, the bullshit with Pietro, and the breakup with Marcus. And Ed. That right there was damn good reason to stay tanked up.

“Dear Universe,” I muttered as I tugged slippers on. Damn this house was cold. “I’m ready for things to swing back my way now.” Yeah, I was selfish like that.

I stomped out to the living room—or at least, as much stomping as fuzzy slippers would allow. “Okay, what’s the deal?”

In answer he thrust a newspaper in my face, so closely that I had to take a step back in order to actually see what it was. Scowling, I took it from his hands and peered at it. It was the front page, with a picture in the middle of a house with crime scene tape strung across the front of it—Marianne’s house, I realized.

And then I saw what had my dad so riled up. There in the bottom left were two people sitting on the curb: Marcus, and me with my arms around him.

I lifted my eyes to his, utterly refusing to show any sort of guilt or shame or chagrin or anything else. “Yeah? So? A friend of mine was murdered.”

That took him aback, but only for a second. He jabbed a finger at the picture. “Yeah, well why the fuck you bein’ all huggy and shit with that cop? Y’know who that is, right? He’s the motherfucker who arrested me!”

I set the paper down on the table, crossed my arms over my chest. “Uh huh. He was.”

My dad’s face reddened. “What the fuck are you thinking? Why’d you betray me like that?”

I probably shouldn’t have, but I let out a bark of laughter. “Betray you? Are you serious? Dad, get a fucking grip.”

He jabbed his finger at me, though I noticed he was careful not to actually touch me. “That cocksucker put me in handcuffs! I spent three days in that shithole jail because of him!”

“No, Dad,” I replied, raising my voice. “It wasn’t because of him, and you know it! You got arrested ’cause you were beating the shit out of me. Remember that? Huh? So don’t go fucking blaming him, and don’t you dare tell me who I can and can’t talk to or date or anything else like that!”

Pain and guilt spasmed across his face, and I instantly felt guilty for bringing up that time. Though in the next instant I reminded myself that he was the one who’d actually brought it up.

“Look, Dad,” I said, lowering my voice and uncrossing my arms. “The thing is, you and me, we’re a couple of fuckups, but at least right now we’re trying to not fuck up quite so often.” I shrugged. “Besides, if it makes you feel better, he was also the cop who arrested me for having that stolen car.”

He grumbled, but some of the anger left his face. “It just don’t feel right cozying up like that to a cop.”

“Dad, Marcus is the one who helped me get off drugs and got me the job I have.”

He gave me a look of surprise. “Why the hell would he do that?” Then his eyes narrowed. “Probably trying to get into your pants.”

Hmm, so maybe now wasn’t the time to tell my dad that Marcus and I had dated. Hell, we were broken up now anyway, so maybe it didn’t make any difference now. “No, he just thought I had potential and had gotten a raw deal.” I looked back down at the paper. “We’re friends now,” I said, while hoping it was still true. “And I was giving him a hug because a friend of ours had just been killed.” I looked up and met my dad’s eyes. “Can’t you understand that?”

“I’m not a fuckin’ monster, Angel,” he replied, voice gruff. “I’ve dealt with my own share of grief, y’know.”

Sighing, I nodded. I knew he was talking about Mom. She’d been the love of his life, and he would have done absolutely anything for her. But she’d also been mentally ill and terribly abusive and neglectful of me, and when my dad had been forced to make a choice between the two of us, he chose me.

My dad blew out his breath and sank down onto the couch. “Look, I’m the kinda guy who holds a grudge. Go and hug on him all you want, but don’t expect me to not get pissed.”

My calm evaporated. “Dad, that’s fucked up. If you want to spend your whole life being angry at people, fine, but some day you’re gonna turn around and realize that there’s no one left for you to like, because you’re determined to be some sort of unforgiving hardass.” I shook my head in disgust and stomped back to my room. “Y’know what?” I called back over my shoulder. “I may go see if I can find someone who’s pissed me off, just so that I can make nice with them.”

So, of course, after being all high and mighty and above reproach with my dad, I felt like a bit of a jackass that I was still mad at Marcus. It didn’t seem right that it had only been one day since Marcus and I had our big fight. It also felt odd that I didn’t have the automatic assumption that this was just a “thing,” and that it would pass, and that we would of course get back together again. That’s how most of my relationship with my ex-boyfriend, Randy, had been. We’d dated on and off for years, with a thousand breakups in that time. Yet we’d never split up over the sort of things that needed to be talked out or worked through in order to save a relationship or make it stronger. Our breakups had always ended when one of us had simply grown tired of being alone. Never any fanfare or celebration or deep talks. Simply slipping back into the same old routines—same old ruts, I knew now.

But this thing with Marcus was different. I was different. At least I hoped so. If I was going to be with Marcus—and, to be honest, I wasn’t certain if that was what I wanted—I wanted it to be a real relationship. A partnership. Yeah, two people growing up and growing old together. That sort of thing. I thought it was possible with Marcus but certainly not the way we were now.

Did that mean it was a good sign that I was suddenly itching to call him and talk things out? I didn’t want to write him out of my life. I do want this to work.

Or maybe I was a stubborn deluded twit who didn’t know how to let bad things go. My history could certainly prove that true.

On the other hand, I did have stuff that I wanted to tell him—stuff I thought he really did need to know. I finally settled for sending him a text, still somehow feeling as if I was breaking some unspoken rule by being the first to cave.

Need to talk to you re headhunter pls. Also stuff re body theft. Important.

I hit send and sighed. Would he read this as me apologizing? Because, honestly, I wasn’t ready to apologize for anything. I didn’t think I needed to. Again, was I being a stubborn twit?

I watched my phone like a hawk for nearly ten minutes, and right when I’d decided he was going to blow me off it dinged with an incoming text.

But it was from Ben, not Marcus.

Body in coffin. No head. Prints match Zeke Lyons. Fuck my life.

I couldn’t help but smile. Poor Ben. I had no idea how the authorities would end up explaining this. However they did it, I had a feeling it would involve lots of lying.

It was another five minutes before my phone dinged again, this time with a response from Marcus.

Sorry, was on a call. Meet at Fowler street boat launch after I get off shift at 8?

Relief began to unknot the tension in my back. Sure thing.

The boat launch was deserted at this time of night, but sodium vapor lights had been installed a few years back that kept the large gravel lot from being too creepy. Still, I parked well away from the water’s edge and stayed in my car with the doors locked. The mere fact that no one had ever seen gators or giant squid or other nasty beasts in the Kreeger River didn’t mean there wasn’t something lurking in that dark water, waiting for someone to get too close.

Yes, this zombie was a bit of a scaredy cat.

I brought the GED study guide to pass the time and was struggling through the section on gerunds when Marcus’s cruiser pulled into the gravel lot. I quickly marked my place and stuffed the book under a jacket, climbing out of my car just as he got out of his. He was still in uniform. Damn, he sure did rock it.

We both stood awkwardly for a few seconds before I finally blurted, “Thanks for coming to talk to me.”

He nodded stiffly. “I’ve been worried about you.” I opened my mouth to speak but he lifted a hand. “And not because I think you can’t take care of yourself, because I know you can. There’s just a lot of weird shit going on…” He paused, took a breath. “And I do care about you.”

“Thanks,” I said, voice a little rough. “I care about you too.” The awkward silence threatened to descend again, and I hurried on. “I saw Ed yesterday.”

Marcus stiffened visibly, eyes narrowing. “Where? Did you call it in?”

“At my house,” I said. “And no, I didn’t call it in. Because I didn’t know how to explain why he’d be coming to my house, or why I might have more reason than most other people to feel threatened by him.”

His jaw tightened in a grimace. “Okay. I can understand that. But still, if you saw him near your house—”

“No, you don’t understand,” I said. “He confronted me.” I exhaled and ran a hand through my hair. “Marcus, it was really….odd.” I quickly related what had happened, complete with him holding me at gunpoint, his insistence that he didn’t kill Marianne, and his question about why I didn’t kill him.